Holmes' Palace
by writerfan2013
Summary: Joan. Sherlock. An abandoned island, a hunt for old treasure and a test of the limits of trust. This story is kind of a sequel to Declarations. Case!fic and humour and Joanlock. Chapter 10 - so many Holmes in the book...
1. Chapter 1

The case is solved by nine p.m., but it is two in the morning before Joan and Sherlock have the kidnapped sisters, the man who took them, and the police, all in one place and in what Sherlock sarcastically refers to as an optimum configuration. The NYPD took an age to respond to his messages, and he and Joan found themselves repeatedly at the wrong end of a Glock before Joan created a distraction and Sherlock was able to overpower the kidnapper.

Bell and Gregson, badges and guns out, are morose and snippy as the paramedics tend to the victims and investigators set up painful floodlights in the chilly warehouse where the teenage girls were discovered. The police have good reason for ill humour: the presidential candidates are due for a New York visit at the end of the month, and crimes like these detract from the hoopla. The NYPD needed a fast resolution, and it is too soon yet for simple relief that Sherlock has once more provided one.

Sherlock is wired, pacing around and finding more and more evidence the police ought not to have missed the first time they searched this wharf.

Joan sits on an upturned crate and wipes her hands with the towel the medics gave warehouse is dark and damp with October cold. Bales of rag are stacked everywhere for shipping to China. The cold concrete floor is stained and filthy, and the night air leaks under the corrugated walls, carrying moisture and desolation straight from the East River and onto the back of Joan's neck.

She scrubs her hands and applies anti-bacterial gel. Those kids will be all right. They are seventeen and nineteen and they have a loving family who will protect and support them. They have been lucky not to join the earlier victims, whose bodies are even now in the police morgue, whose smiling, heartbreaking college pictures have been this week's headlines.

Her hands do not feel clean. She wants hot water and a scourer. She wants never to have touched that man, never to have had his glassy eyes and sweaty cold fingers on her arms as she told him lies while Sherlock crept up behind him with a piece of broken chair and a deadly expression.

The girls lay whimpering behind Joan and she faced down their kidnapper and would-be murderer, and Sherlock's face over the man's shoulder was hard and cold and frighteningly blank. Joan was quite prepared to attack the kidnapper, quite prepared to hurt him if it saved his victims' lives, but Sherlock's face showed more than horror at the terrible crimes. He was angry and afraid, and his face was frozen to try to hide it.

Joan gave Sherlock his chance, and the kidnapper fell. One blow, and then Sherlock had him in an armlock, and Joan ran to help the girls and to call, again, the police.

Now Sherlock has transferred his horror to fury and Joan is shivering.

"You ok?" Gregson asks her in a fatherly tone, dropping Captain duties for a moment and coming over. He has found a cup of coffee from somewhere - do Forensics have an espresso machine in the back of their truck? - and offers it to Joan, who shakes her head.

"I'll be all right." But she keeps winding the towel over and around her hands.

Sherlock is gesticulating at Detective Bell, his face crumpled into a frown, his coat creased and muddied from the struggle with the kidnapper, one knee of his jeans ripped. Unshaven and wild-eyed, his hair uncombed and his arms flailing with the passion of his words, he might be a street person urging passers-by to repent before the end of the world.

Joan hears him say, "These are obviously the tracks from a Dodge Charger with damage to the left inside tyre - the same car you dismissed from your case two days ago when the second girl was still alive!"

"Simmer down, Holmes, we got him," says Gregson, going over there.

"Not soon enough," says Sherlock furiously.

Bell retreats, leaving the Captain to handle Sherlock's wrath. He too comes and asks if Joan is ok, and again, she says she is. "You look a little shaken up," Bell observes.

"That man. The things he did. I've never dealt with anything like it before. That's all." The man was disturbed. Beyond disturbed. By the time Sherlock had him, flattening him with cold efficiency, the kidnapper was dribbling and spitting and his words were a stream of obscenities mixed in with the utterly mundane. He got taken away in a strait jacket.

Joan wants to go home. She wants her bed. She wants out of this place and away from the insanity.

"Yeah, good luck with that," remarks Bell, glancing at Sherlock who is cataloguing the nine key points of differentiation between the tyres on the killer's car and those of the car the police mistakenly tracked for two days, before they called Sherlock for help.

Joan whips round. "What do you mean?"

Bell steps back, holding up his hands. "Whoa, hey, I never meant - The stuff he knows, is all. All that stuff, that detail, he keeps in his head. Freaky."

Joan stares at Bell. She takes a couple of breaths but then it comes out anyway, and not quietly. "You don't think it's _freaky_ that I have in my head all the stages of a hundred surgical procedures, do you? Or that guys in a bar have in their heads a thousand plays they can unpick throughout a football game? That's not weird, but Sherlock memorizing the results of a lifetime of close observation which he uses to _help_ people, to solve hideous crimes, that is _freaky_, you think that makes him a _freak_?"

Her voice squeaks and Sherlock and Gregson turn towards her.

"I'm sorry," Bell says. "It came across wrong. I just meant that he's -"

"What?" Joan snaps.

"Special," says Bell, and Joan flips.

Sherlock reaches her side just as she is about to smack Bell across the chops, and moves swiftly to stand in front of her. "Watson. Watson! Our cab is here."

She is trembling, heaving in gulps of dank air, on the brink of assaulting a police officer, on the knife edge between rage and tears.

Sherlock hesitates, his gaze roving across her face, his own anger tamped down. Then he grasps Joan's arm and leads her quickly from the warehouse to where a taxi is parked with its engine running.

Joan allows him to chivvy her into the cab, and then sits, silent and resentful as they head back to Brooklyn.

"My word, Watson," Sherlock says in a light-hearted tone, "you are formidable when angry."

She frowns, sighs, shakes her head. Night-time New York flickers past the windows.

"And thank you," Sherlock adds in a fast mumble. He extends his hand to her, stopping short of contact - they do not touch except for practical purposes - then reels it back, drumming his fingers against his lower lip.

Joan's arm tingles with the touch which never materialised: Sherlock affection. Joan scowls, then flings herself back against the seat and shuts her eyes. She is exhausted.

Minutes pass and neither of them speaks.

"That man - the kidnapper - was released on a care order," Sherlock says after a while. "Negligence. The authorities completely overlooked the notes on his file which declared him a danger to others."

He gives her a sideways look. "I understand that it's hard to empathise. But this man actually begged the authorities not to let him go."

"So why did they?" At two a.m. and with the man's greasy eyes and grey skin still fresh in her mind, Joan is not in the mood for letting anyone off the hook.

"They needed the space."

"Huh."

"He was a very sick man and the people responsible for him let him down." Sherlock is firm.

"Let those girls down too."

"Yes. -You did an outstanding patch up job, Watson. The paramedics were almost superfluous."

"Huh."

"I do not praise to flatter you," he says then. "I only state facts. Your skill allowed me to focus on restraining the perpetrator."

"I'm just tired, Sherlock. Tired and strung out. I want to be in my bed."

"As do I."

She leans back in the seat and lets the lights flickering past the window mesmerize her. The city can be so bright and beautiful - yet it holds darkness too, and sometimes the darkest thing lies in the hearts of its people.

Eight million people. Even more lights. How can someone hide a secret like these evil, sick kidnaps? A sickness in plain sight, overlooked in the swirling mass of people and problems, in the sheer density of life in this crowded and noisy city.

Sherlock's gaze is on her, reading her thoughts in her face. Another of his skills, to know what she is feeling. Pity it doesn't cut both ways. How does he cope? _Does_ he cope? "The kidnapper was sick, Watson. He was delusional. He thought he was doing one thing, whilst doing quite another. He will be convicted, but he will not go to prison. He will be sequestered for the rest of his life."

Joan recoils from the blurring city, from election billboards shouting _Vote Latimer! a_nd neon flashing the promise that such-a-store will supply your personal treasure. She turns her frustration on Sherlock. "How can we protect people against that? We can never be safe from those people."

She sees him flinch. Thinks of Bell and mentally kicks herself. But he only asks calmly, "What do you suggest, Watson? We should lock up everyone with any symptoms of mental illness?"

"No. Of course not. But-"

"There is no cure for it, Watson. There is only treatment. And care." His voice is low and gentle.

"It is hard to care for someone so - sick."

"Yes."

He turns his face from her then. The city blurs into sparkle and shine. Bright lights and black sickness are mingled together in the world's melting pot.

She cannot stop this kind of wrong. Sherlock cannot. It is invisible until too late. And she is so tired...

She is woken by the creak of the cab's brake, and Sherlock's hot hand rattling her knee. "Watson. We're home."

She stumbles into their brownstone, grateful for its warm, dim hallway, her head still full of bad dreams about crazy strangers and bright lights.

Sherlock pays the cab driver.

Joan is already at the top of the stairs when she hears Sherlock's soft, "Goodnight, Watson." She turns to see his mournful face tilted up to her in the brownstone's unique twilight, and his fingers fluttering an ironic farewell.

She opens her mouth to say _goodnight_, and maybe, _come up_, but he has already slipped into the library. She turns the corner and goes to bed alone.

* * *

**Author's note:** Bell is an idiot here but I put it down to the stress of the investigation and pressure from City Hall to clean up before NYC is a venue for the presidential campaign. He's just a little out of character for plot purposes!

Also, this story takes place after _Declarations_. It should stand alone, however. -Sef


	2. Chapter 2

The mail lies in a heap on the passage floor. Joan can see it from the top of the stairs. If she goes down now, crouches and picks up it up,she would need to wrap both arms round it to get it all, around plastic-wrapped catalogues and journals, manila envelopes containing utility bills, and many many personal letters in pastel colours, some with stickers, some with foreign stamps, some with handwritten postscripts on the back reminding the recipient of the urgency of their contents. She would need to clasp it to her bosom. A mail embrace.

All of it will be addressed to Sherlock.

Joan takes the first step down. The house is his. Joan's friends prefer to text her. The bills are all in Sherlock's name. Joan has gone paperless for her credit card and cellphone bills. There is no reason she should get mail.

Yet today she rebels. Today it would be nice to get, not even a letter, maybe only a postcard, from a friend or relative, saying how are you, I've been on a trip to this place, wish you were here!

Today she has a headache. A piece of good news from anywhere would be nice.

It is only a delayed reaction from last night, where her best contribution was her medical skill in bandaging the wounds.

God. How to shake off the memory. Murderers with motives she can handle. But those whose reasons are unknowable, cannot be predicted, cannot be prevented.

She takes deep breaths and descends the stairs steadily. Picks up the mail. Huffs at the bills, ignores the obvious love letters. Sherlock gets a lot of fan mail, some of it soggy. She grabs the more interesting-looking of the weird journals (_Metal Detector Treasure _and _Journal of Industrial and Maritime Archhaeology_) and heads to the kitchen.

Sherlock is there. "Ah, the post. Morning."

He sifts through rapidly as Joan retrieves bread, jelly, butter, and a plate which looks ok. Sherlock has a system for handling mail and Joan watches it in action as she makes the toast. The love letters go onto the floor. The bills are dropped onto the existing pile of bills. The would-be clients get the courtesy of their letters being speed-read before being tossed onto the floor.

Joan sits with her breakfast and coffee - today merits coffee - and breaks open the _Journal of Industrial and Maritime Archaeology_. Sherlock quirks an eyebrow at her presumption but says nothing. She gives him a minor glare. They are currently about even on this score. She found him leafing through her _Figleaves _catalogue last week. She borrowed his razor. He took her lip balm.

She shakes out the journal and sets about reading the history of the Roosevelt Island Light, as he stops still and says, "Hah," in a puzzled tone.

"What's up?"

The letter is already folded into his back jeans pocket. "This inheritance," he says with a shrug. "Money is more bother than it's worth, Watson."

She smiles, a little awkwardly. That Sherlock is now financially independent is good news. But it is rather crass to congratulate someone on their good fortune when it is the result of the murder of their aunt, and also when it markedly benefits yourself.

"Now Watson, I am off, caffeine in hand, to scour the airwaves for possible cases. Will you be joining me, or would you prefer to make a start on your next selection of improving reading material?"

He gestures through the French doors into his bedroom. A stack of books rests on the neat bed. Joan can read only one title from here: _100 common syndromes and how to recognise them._ The bed appears unslept in. Sherlock prefers the couch, prefers to sleep only where and when he drops, would prefer in fact never to sleep.

"Actually," Joan says, "I was thinking of going to visit some friends upstate. I could use some time away from the city. A day or two."

Sherlock pauses in the kitchen doorway, mug in hand. The mug reads, _Hansen -THE Boat Hire People._

"Time away?" he queries, and his tone is flat and cold.

She persists. "Yeah, just a couple of days to recharge my batteries. It's no big deal."

But this, it transpires, is completely the wrong thing to say.


	3. Chapter 3

They are standing in their kitchen holding mugs of hot coffee, and even taking short sips, small steps towards starting the day, but they are arguing.

Joan is in the wrong. Sherlock is making this abundantly clear through his body language. He is the definition of frosty disappointment. In spite of this, Joan persists. "I need a break."

"Crime does not cease because one becomes tired, Watson." Sherlock's eyes are wide, his mouth narrow. His right hand is clenched around the coffee mug and his left is closing and unfurling in rhythmic dissatisfaction at his side.

"No, but my deductions might deteriorate because I haven't had any kind of vacation in months." Joan swallows coffee without tasting it.

Sherlock's eyes narrow. "You socialize. You see friends and boyfriends."

Not strictly accurate, she thinks, but does not correct him. She takes deep breaths and tries not to let his tone get to her. He rarely loses his temper, but his cold anger is painful. "I very occasionally have a free evening, and more often than not it is interrupted by you texting me to tell me the grisly details of a murder."

"The details are what we work with, Watson." He seems hurt.

"It is the interruption, Sherlock, not the details." She sets her mug on the table.

He seems bewildered.

"Listen," she says. "I just need a couple of days off. No cases. No running around. No - "

"No me," he says.

She hesitates and in that second his eyes widen and then his face settles into its neutral, expressionless mask, the face he shows strangers, the face he shows his enemies.

"It's not you," she says. "It's the work I need a break from. A vacation."

"I understand."

"No," she says. "Don't get all offended. It isn't you."

It isn't. She spends all day with him, every day, and at the end of the day she comes home and he is there too. And she isn't tired of him, bored of him, sick of him. Her fatigue is more complex than that: late nights and gruesome death and the city - the noise and motion of city life.

"Humans aren't made for cities," she says. "I just want out for a couple of days. Clear my head. Refuel my brain. You know?"

His mouth twitches. "As a surgeon, Watson, I'd hope you had a surer grasp of how the human brain works than your metaphors would suggest."

"Dammit, Sherlock, I just need a couple of days off!"

Her temper is generally nearer the surface than his, which means she has more practice at keeping it in check. Her outbursts, like this one, are generally controlled. She knows how to stay calm. Usually. Last night was an exception, and perhaps proof that she needs this time out.

Sherlock stares at her but for once does not appear to see her. His gaze is hard, his mouth set.

Close observation is highly useful in tense moments because people forget to act, forget to disguise. Sherlock taught her that. And right now, Joan can see that although his stance remains deliberately loose and his voice is dismissive, Sherlock is trembling.

"All right," he says. "We could both probably use a change of pace. I will consider it."

Joan sighs. Do detectives have a union? Does she have any constitutional rights to a vacation?

Sherlock probably knows the law to the paragraph number. His late-night reading knows no limits of genre or source. Recently she caught him flipping through a magazine article about arcane legal intricacies in the Presidential election process. He got to the part about the current likely candidates, the only part Joan might have voluntarily read, and dropped the magazine listlessly on the floor, open at a full-spread photo of Reed Latimer, the silver haired, twinkling-eyed favourite.

"I have work to do," Sherlock says now. "I suggest the reading list as your first task."

"Ok."

He turns away. Joan goes into his featureless bedroom and stands there, calming herself, for several minutes. He drives her crazy. She returns the favour. It is just what they do. And there is always the work.

She will get out of the city. She will. But first there are these hundred lurid syndromes to memorise.

* * *

She climbs the stairs, collects her bathrobe and towel, and tramps to the bathroom, for a shower preparatory for a morning of reading. As she throws her clothes onto the floor and sets the shower going, she wonders if she can just go out tonight - ostensibly for a drink - and crash at a friend's house. Or in a hotel. No - for a hotel you need luggage.

For pity's sake.

She is contemplating escape from her own home. Ridiculous. She will just tell Sherlock, today, that is she is going out of town for a couple of days, and to call if he needs her. She's done that before. Why is it different now?

Because before she was his sober companion, testing him for independence. Before, she was employed by his father. Now she works for him. And although she is in his pay, is his apprentice, he calls her his partner.

And she likes that.

She owes him. Her world has expanded since meeting him, and she is so grateful for that. But the boundaries are unclear. She is his member of staff so she can't just ditch work. But he is her... manager... and so he can't expect her to have no time off.

How, exactly, does this work?

So far it has worked on rough guesses. But this last case - these last few days - she has relied on him, and he on her, and they have propped each other through harrowing scenes and restless nights and relentless discovery of clue after unpleasant clue. And now she wants time off and he does not want to let her go.

She has wondered about a new type of dependence. Her expertise warns her to look for such things. Has Sherlock swapped a physical addiction for a psychological one?

He says she makes him better - better at his work. Better at life.

A compliment, but one fraught with danger.

If he truly believes that, it makes him vulnerable. Should she leave, be harmed, be killed - he would be exposed, believing himself reduced.

She hopes that he does not really think that without her he would be diminished. She hopes, that is, she imagines, that when he says those things, they are just his way of telling her that he values her, that he loves her too.

No. Do not think about love. Do not put love into this situation, onto Sherlock. Do not think about London. Do not think about the night, the one night, they spent together. Just get in the shower.

She gets in the shower and turns it up to max. The water screams in the pipes and the whine sounds through the whole house, but that does not stop, or even divert, Joan's rebellious thoughts.

So she supposes it is lucky when Sherlock bangs on the door and walks in. He stands with his back to her and says to the wall, "Watson, I have been thinking. You are right. Not all problems can be solved in the midst of hustle and bustle. We will take a trip and spend a day, or perhaps two, out of the city."

"Both of us." She is talking to the back of his head.

"Yes. I recall you said that I was not the source of your discomfort."

She switches off the water, wraps a towel round herself and climbs out. Sherlock passes her the smaller towel for her hair without making eye contact. "Thank you." She sits on the edge of the bath and rubs her hair. He is accepting her request. She is a little nonplussed.

He continues, "I have somewhere in mind for our escape from the urban chaos. We will need to drive though."

"I can hire a car."

"Excellent. Then we will leave in an hour." And he whirls from the room, leaving the door open and a draught chilling Joan's bare skin.

She shuts the bathroom door and towels her hair some more.

She is getting her wish. That is good. She ought to be pleased.

She _is_ pleased. Except-

No.

She is being uncharitable. She is being paranoid. Or she is being unkind.

Because Sherlock has a reason for everything, and that sudden change of plan was simply too easy.


	4. Chapter 4

She drives, as usual. He is restless and irritable in the passenger seat. They cannot agree on music until she finds a classical station. "Movie music," he complains, but stops twirling the dial.

He will not set the satnav, preferring to give her directions. "It is not far," he says. "Still in New York."

They have been on the road for a while. Traffic. And then the freeway. "This would seem to be Connecticut," Joan says.

"Not quite," Sherlock says. "And anyway, we're here."

Here is nowhere. A country park. A rangers' office, closed, and a narrow shingle beach. The remains of a boathouse destroyed by Sandy or time, impossible to tell.

"There's an inn," says Sherlock. He directs, and Joan points the car up a gravelly track to a low building backed with trees and overlooking a narrow view of Long Island Sound.

Joan parks the car. "Ok..." she says. The inn looks rather sweet. Timbered, with window boxes filled with late asters and some cyclamen. Lamps are set either side of the front door.

Is this the retreat Sherlock has planned? If so it is remarkably conventional. Could it be that they are going to book into a bed and breakfast for the weekend, and go for walks in the woods and kick up leaves and cosy up by the fire and eat candle-lit meals together, like a normal couple?

"We are not a normal couple," says Sherlock to this, glancing at her incredulously. He does not deny they are a couple, Joan notices.

They go inside and Sherlock collects a note from Reception. He reads it and hands it back. "Everything is in place," he says. "Seen anything lately?" he asks the man at the desk.

The guy gives Sherlock a sour look. "Lights and noises at night," he says. "But then, sound carries at night."

"And you wouldn't need lights during the day," Sherlock agrees. "Thank you for your help."

And they go out and get back in the car. "Stick it behind the ranger's hut," Sherlock instructs. Joan backs the car in between the hut and the treeline.

Sherlock springs out and retrieves their bags from the trunk. Joan's is a conventional weekender and contains warm clothes - his suggestion - plus a few toiletries and a hopeful sparkly top to go with jeans, should the occasion arise.

His is a large backpack with military patches (a flag unknown to Joan. Norway? Finland?) plus another holdall, also black, and clearly heavy.

Neither appears to hold evening wear, or Scrabble, or perhaps a bottle of aftershave. This, it seems, is equipment. And now Joan is suspicious.

"Give us a hand, Watson!" Sherlock calls.

He is at the edge of the beach, rummaging by some bushes. "Ah! Just as I asked."

He hauls a yellow canoe raucously onto the pebbles.

"No," says Joan.

"Yes," says Sherlock. "Don't worry, I have built up some expertise."

"This is the sea and it is October. If we fall in - "

"The chances of that are slim and in any case we have life jackets. I prefer my flirtations with death to be in greater comfort than a kayak affords."

He rolls up his trousers. He has pale legs, no sunlight on them for, what, twenty years, maybe more, maybe since school. Joan cannot picture Sherlock as ever having been the team sports type. Holmes, scrum half? Holmes, winger? No, she thinks, he would have been in the shooting team. She is prepared to bet cash money that Sherlock's school was the kind that has an armoury.

He pushes the so-called boat out onto the silky surface of the water, holds it steady for her.

Joan looks. Scowls. Sighs. Her dignity is about to take a major dive. She cares less about that, though, than about the fact that a comfortable bed at the end of their journey appears increasingly unlikely. She removes her boots and wades in.

Sherlock climbs aboard. The canoe, loaded with two people plus luggage, tilts disconcertingly. He gives her a grin. "Our destination awaits."

Sherlock, bulky in his life jacket, paddles. The canoe glides away from the beach, the car, the welcoming inn with its warm lobby and solid footing. Soon they are far onto the water.

Joan, a cautious hand gripping the canoe's rough fibreglass on either side, looks around. Long Island Sound is grey and bleak. Down here at sea level, distances are compressed: low islands show as dark shallow bumps close to the grey horizon. Sounds are magnified: the scream of a sea bird overhead, the slap of waves against their prow. Joan is conscious of being six inches from the water's surface.

It is like being in another world, silvery and chill. Out on the water the wind is brisk. There are waves. Suddenly Joan thinks about shipping. That lighthouse is there for a reason.

"Fear not, Watson, our route does not cross with any cruise liners."

She has not asked where they are going. Pride will not allow it.

Sherlock paddles and after a long time, it is clear they are heading for a narrow island. Trees in autumn browns and bronzes throng at its centre. A bird swoops above them in clean-cut flight. Joan sees rocks piled up around its shores. An artificial island, or an augmented one? She knows there are plenty of those in New York. Need a fort in an eleven-pointed star shape? Nowhere to undock those European immigrants? Build an island.

The land mass they are now approaching seems natural, though: uneven and rising in the centre to a low ridge. Not like Liberty Island or Ellis Island, flat like pontoons. This island has lumps and bumps and wild looking trees, and ... buildings.

"Where is this?" Joan asks finally as Sherlock jumps into the water and drags the canoe up the shore, gravel crunching under its hull. He holds his hand out to her. She grips it and leaps awkwardly onto dry land.

Sherlock is shivering. The water is not much above freezing. He pulls the craft up the beach and stashes it under some bushes, bending branches down to hide its presence. Joan frowns, and hands him his shoes and socks. He sits on the sloping shore and puts them on. Joan drags the bags out of the canoe. Sherlock's two weigh as much as she does.

"That was simpler than I expected," he comments, rubbing his hands.

"Are we supposed to be here? Who owns this island?" The Parks Department has its own police force and they are armed just like regular police. Joan does not feel like discovering if deadly force can be used on trespassers.

"We are most certainly supposed to be here. A retreat, just as you asked." He looks beseechingly at her.

"Ok," she says. "But where is this?"

"Larks Island," he says. "Part of New York, but barely. Privately owned. You need permission to be here."

"Ok... "

"Which we have," he adds, standing and brushing his hands on his thighs.

"Right."

"So... Is there a house?" She glimpsed a structure through the treetops as they glided into shore.

"We will hike to it." He gives a satisfied nod.

Joan puts her head on one side. "I don't like the way you said hike, not walk. Is that a British thing?"

"Do you see pavements?"

"No. This is definitely not a sidewalk kind of deal."

"Then we hike. Come on, Watson." He picks up his bags without the least show of effort - his wiry strength - and marches off towards the trees.

Joan slings her weekender over her shoulder and follows. What else can she do?


	5. Chapter 5

Their hike starts with a heavy-footed schlep across the pebbled beach until they reach a jetty. Sherlock scrambles up the stony bank beside it and reaches a hand down to help Joan up.

"Where are we heading?" Joan asks. Having given in, she may as well have the full scenario.

"Let's explore," says Sherlock, which absolutely does not answer the question.

"Is there a house here?" Joan asks. "A hotel?"

"A palace, Watson, a veritable palace."

The jetty is rather palatial. Wide wooden planks are edged with a railing made of black painted cast iron poles. Each upright has a ball finial on top. It is like a miniature pier. Joan almost expects to see a tiny roller coaster on the end.

At the land end of the jetty a road, an actual tar road, leads off into the trees. It is very overgrown but, presumably, upkeep on a place like this must be astronomical. An island - every single thing you needed would have to be brought in. What a logistical nightmare.

Later, Joan will remember this thought, and Sherlock whistling with two hefty bags slung over his shoulder, and groan.

Under the trees, the early afternoon air chills down to premature evening. The branches meet overhead and it is surprisingly dark beneath them. Joan slogs along behind Sherlock, stepping over fallen branches which look to have lain there since last fall, and avoiding zigzag cracks like fork lightning in the tarred surface, where roots are forcing their way up to freedom.

Lining the road, rhododendrons have grown to towering height. Long past their flowering season, their leaves are dark and glossy, and give off a chemical scent.

There are no paths off the road. It winds around and follows a mossed ridge which Joan realises after a while was once a stone wall, its top planted with alpines. The sedum has sprung out all over and flowed down to meet the ferns climbing from crack to crack, both battling the moss on its mission to smother all other life.

They pass between stone pillars like a gateway, although there is no sign of there having ever been a gate. It seems more of a marker, an announcement, than a barrier. And sure enough, as Sherlock rubs at one of the pillars some moss falls away and Joan sees lettering chiselled into the stone: Palace. Larks Palace, she reads. Sherlock twitches his eyebrows at her.

He is in a very good mood. As well he might be, because he got his own way in choice of destination for their weekend escape, and is enjoying making Joan suffer the agonies of being in the dark

The wall curves around and the road climbs, and now there are what were once lawns on either side. Patchy in places, elsewhere the grass has been colonised by clover and wild barley. But Joan is not thinking about lawn maintenance, because now, at the top of the grass, she can see the house.

She stops dead. Sherlock has paused too. "Oh," he says. "It is not quite what I expected." His eyes narrow. He is thinking. "This complicates things somewhat-"

"Oh my god," says Joan.

The house is enormous and at least a hundred years old. It is a nineteenth century pile in a mix of fanciful European styles, rendered in grey plaster, or else white plaster has weathered to a concrete sludge colour. Long slim window openings range along the ground floor, and are matched by smaller ones above. Delicate wrought ironwork in front of the windows is suggestive of balconies, although these are purely decorative. There is a turret at the far end topped with a pointy lead hat. The gable at the nearest end is topped with more intricate metalwork, roof cresting, a flourish at the peak of the building.

It is the roof which has Joan's fixed attention. The roof.

Is missing.

"Sherlock..."

"Built at the end of the nineteenth century to replace an earlier structure. In use until 1967. Abandoned quickly and allowed to fall into disrepair." He fires off facts while standing wide eyed in the gravel circle in front of the ruined house.

"Disrepair!" Repair is not what this place needs. A bulldozer is what it needs. Maybe with napalm.

"Retained but not used by its owner for forty years and then again sold recently after the current owner made them an offer to take it off their hands. And now, as you see it, ripe for restoration." He makes an expansive gesture. "A slice of history, a time capsule, a perfect retreat from the hustle and bustle of city life."

"It does not have a roof," says Joan very clearly.

"No. But most of the floors look to be intact. Come on, let's take a closer look."


	6. Chapter 6

Sherlock is unusually silent as they pick their way across the unruly lawn to the front entrance of Larks Palace. Joan casts sideways glances at him but his face is turned away as if he is inspecting something fascinating among the leaves and twigs strewn across the grass. "No spade marks," he mutters when she asks if he's Ok.

The main door has a grand porch above it. Rusted lanterns sway in the gathering breeze, their wiring long since rotted away. Sherlock pushes at the front door and it lurches open on one hinge.

Inside, the once-polished wooden floor, so like their own in the hallway of the brownstone, is warped and leached of its shine - destroyed by the damp which has blown in through the broken door. A chandelier is suspended from the remains of the high ceiling, and Joan instinctively skirts around it. This whole place is precarious. She has no wish to discover if early twentieth century fixtures are as heavy as they look.

There is a reception desk in one corner, an ornate marble-topped affair with a service bell lying on the floor in front of it. Sherlock picks it up and gives it a ding.

Joan wishes he hadn't. The echo is dismal.

He puts the bell on the desk. "No signing-in book," he observes with a wry smile. He puts his bags down behind the desk and Joan follows suit. "Well then," says Sherlock, rubbing his hands. "Shall we?"

He strides off through an arch and elbows open a pair of narrow swing doors, apparently as insouciant as ever, but Joan is worried. He is unsettled. On edge. Trying far too hard to appear unconcerned.

What the hell is going on? Not a vacation, obviously. She gave that idea up about the time the canoe made an appearance. But if this is for a case - and what else? - then why is Sherlock so rattled? What is wrong?

The feeling, that sick, frightened, despairing feeling she had when they were tracking that vile kidnapper, creeps over her again. Sherlock is always a puzzle, but he is reliably mysterious. Nothing fazes him. He always has the answer up his sleeve, and sometimes Joan has helped him put it there. That is part of why she likes working with him: he is solid and trustworthy, albeit in an unconventional way. But now he seems ... thrown off course, blown towards this tiny landmass in Long Island Sound, and lost.

She takes a flashlight out of her overnight bag, and sticks it in her pocket. Above the chandelier is a criss-cross of open rafters. The place clearly has no electricity. And after the week they have had, Joan has no intention of being lost, with a peculiar Sherlock, in the dark.

* * *

"In here!" Sherlock calls, and Joan opens another peeling-paint door and discovers him in the kitchen.

The room is massive and industrial. Enormous counters line the walls and wires dangle where stoves were once installed.

There is a yellowed fridge in one corner. Joan opens the door and recoils. Bottles of milk are stacked up in orderly rows, still sealed but revoltingly rotted.

Sherlock is opening drawers with the kind of care he uses at a crime scene. "Fascinating," he murmurs, gesturing at an electric can-opener mounted on one wall.

Nothing in the kitchen is newer than 1960.

"Let's take a look upstairs," Sherlock says with the same unnatural brightness as before.

Upstairs a corridor runs the length of the building. Many doors open off this, into large square rooms with views from their broken windows into the branches of tangled trees. Overhead, rafters are visible, and grey light pours down through the voids in the roof. Wires poke out from the plaster, showing the locations of ghost TVs and lamps.

Joan walks into one room where the floor appears sturdy. It has a bed, with rotting blankets still on and leather straps hanging from the iron bedstead. The nightstand lies on its side with the drawer open. Sherlock touches it with his scuffed boot and grimaces. "Empty," he says. "Hmmn."

Joan has her hand in her pocket, on the flashlight. The flashlight is tangible and certain. Nothing here shares those qualities, and as Sherlock opens more doors, revealing identical bedrooms, she becomes distinctly worried.

She says nothing, though. He will tell her what is going on when he is ready. She knows that. He always lets her in. Eventually.

Still. Sooner rather than later would be good.

One room is not a bedroom but contains dented beige lockers and a steel sink. White coats are pooled on the floor beneath a row of hooks. The remains of cigarette butts fill an ashtray. A copy of _Newsweek_ from 1959 flops, soggy, on a low, splayed-leg wooden table.

The sink holds syringes and empty glass jars and padlocks. Behind the door lurks a trolley with what looks like a transistor radio on it - yellowed plastic case, streamlined moulding, gauges and serrated knobs and a Siemens logo. The needles lie flat against the far left of each gauge as if exhausted.

"Sherlock," Joan says.

"Yes," says Sherlock, and then clamps his mouth shut and blinks rapidly.

Joan backs off and goes next door. The linen room. There is a softcover notebook on a large table, and open shelving with white sheets in neat folded stacks. Opening the book, Joan sees lists of laundry done: sheets sent out to the mainland, and table linen too. At the back of the book is a section for personal laundry. She guesses it was simpler to get it done on the mainland once a week than here.

Sherlock has stopped touching things and only hovers in each room, shifting from foot to foot, his eyes in constant motion, his jaw set and unhappy.

"We can go," Joan suggests, but he shakes his head.

They tiptoe back downstairs and find a dining room with spindly chairs and blistered Formica tables. Stained knives and forks huddle in a plastic tray on the wooden sideboard.

Next door is a communal room with large windows overlooking the lawn. Plastic-upholstered armchairs with mean wooden arms are ranged around the room, some overturned by the wind which even now is throwing the rags of the curtains back and forth against the broken patio windows.

There would have been a view here once. But as hotels go, even allowing for time, even with a roof, this would not have been luxurious.

"This is not a hotel," says Joan.

"People paid to be here," says Sherlock.

"And be strapped to their beds." Joan folds her arms.

"You noticed that, hmmm."

"Yeah."

His eyes are haunted and she has to know the truth now. If this is linked to the kidnapper she will row Sherlock home herself and call the police. Neither of them is in any shape for more of that nightmare.

She waits. Sherlock swallows, clears his throat, eventually speaks. "Hmn. Well, it was a special kind of residential hotel."

"An insane asylum."

"A private hospital for the care of people with wealthy enough relations that they could come here and remain completely out of sight of respectable society in New York."

"Strapped to their beds."

"So it seems." He winces and shuffles his feet. Odd. He is emotionless at crime scenes, intellectually puzzled by the most graphic and unpleasant deeds, and generally cannot be ruffled. Yet the idea of patient restraint, which was pretty standard in healthcare at the time this place was last operating, disturbs him.

His mouth twitches.

Aha. It is one of his tells. Joan knows him now, and she recognises this pursed lip fidgetiness. He is not telling her something. Or, as you might also phrase it, he is lying.

He does lie, of course. Pretty often. To put it another way, constantly. It is professionally a way to control the situation and gain maximum benefit from any deduction he is working on, and personally a defence mechanism. It is also a way to avoid cleaning the fridge.

So what is it this time?

There is a door at the far end of the ground floor corridor. Joan wrenches it open, calculating when will be the right moment to insist she know why they are really here, and why Sherlock is so upset by this place. Inside, she peeps in and sees a wooden staircase which winds up and up. But at the top the entrance to the turret is barricaded off. Sherlock grimaces. "Have to get a saw," he mutters.

"I guess you have one in your bag," Joan says pointedly. He grins a bit.

"Pity," he says. I had hopes for this place. He looks pained. "In particular I hoped it would be ... pleasanter."

Joan looks around at the derelict Larks Palace, and then back to him."Sherlock... What are we doing here?" _Say it_, she thinks. _Say it's for a case right now and I might forgive you._

"There is a task I want to perform, here on this island," he says, his eyes flickering to her.

"Right... "

"It won't take long. Probably won't take long."

Ah, the caveat. _Kiss goodbye to your weekend, Joan. _"Is it a case?"

"A mystery. I have not been engaged as such." He is projecting earnestness.

Hmmm. "So this is, what, relaxation?"

His eyes gleam. "Or stimulation."

Of course it is. To Sherlock, this is a bundle of fun. Relaxing with a little work, that's the way.

She sighs. They are on an island and only Sherlock knows how to paddle a canoe. Also, there is a weird old building and a mystery. Dammit. She actually cannot resist.

Sherlock opens his mouth to explain but is stopped by sounds of voices outside. His eyes widen. "Watson. Quick."

They race back to the foyer.

Sherlock unzips his black holdall and takes out two items, flinging one across the desk to Joan. It resolves in her hands as a folding shovel.

"Good," says Sherlock in a whisper. "Now let's get outside and dig the garden up a bit."

He hustles her onto the terrace and leads the way round the side of the house to a vegetable bed where rosemary and thyme crowd out the spindly descendants of Calabrese. He has just stuck his spade into the wet black earth when two men and a woman, dressed in an assortment of dungarees, combat pants and woolly hats, hurry around the corner of the building.

The group stop, crashing into each other. The woman, whose dyed red hair is spiked into her multiply pierced face, hails them in a sharp aggressive tone. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Sherlock bounds in, beaming, hand extended. "Well met!" he cries. He takes her hand and shakes it vigorously. "We are, I believe on the same mission as you. My name is Sherlock Holmes. This is my associate Joan Watson, and we are here, my friends, to hunt for treasure."


	7. Chapter 7

Sherlock and Joan face the dishevelled group across a weed-ravaged stone path in the kitchen garden of Larks Palace."We were here first," says the younger of the two men in a whiny voice. He has camouflage shirt, camouflage jacket and camouflage combat pants, plus dreadlocked blonde hair and big dark eyes.

"Shut up," says the woman with the red hair and eyebrow piercings. "What treasure?" she asks Sherlock, her hands on her dungareed hips.

"You know," Sherlock says. "The secret!" He beams at her, careless of the fact that all three of the newcomers are glaring at him.

The red-haired woman speaks. "We are urban explorers," she says with a toss of her head. "Come to look at Larks Palace."

"Oh, is that your cover story?" Sherlock asks in a tone of dim realisation. "Sorry."

The woman frowns.

"I won't breathe a word," Sherlock whispers to her, tapping the side of his nose and winking at the two men. "But if you need any pointers "- the stage whisper grows even less plausible "- my companion here is a world expert in the retrieval of historic contraband." He sweeps his hand wide to indicate Joan, and a feast of riches uncovered by her efforts.

For this he gets puzzled looks from the men and a hearty glower from the redhead. She points a stained finger at them. "Where's your camp?"

"Where's yours?" counters Sherlock.

"This way," says the youngster in camouflage everything, beckoning. The woman looks unhappy, but Sherlock takes no notice and he and Joan follow the boy into the trees. The woman falls into step with Sherlock.

"I've never heard of her," she says, looking Joan up and down.

"Well, she doesn't use her real name," Sherlock says witheringly. He throws Joan a look which says, Honestly. Who are these amateurs? and the woman bristles.

Joan says nothing. She knows to follow Sherlock's lead in situations such as these. And he never picks a demeaning alter ego for her. She is always an expert something.

"Such a thrill to be here," Sherlock enthuses as they weave through the trees. "Just an absolute dream. The atmosphere alone, you know."

"Right," says the woman. "Well. I guess you can do whatever. But don't get in our way."

"Jolly gracious of you," Sherlock says."Any chance of a cuppa? Parched," he adds.

"We're here to do a job," says the woman suspiciously.

"Highly commendable attitude." Sherlock casts admiring glances at her. "And your name is ...?"

"Crash," she admits reluctantly.

"Crash. Delighted! Then let's away to your facilities, for I am dying to meet the rest of your group. More kindred spirits, how marvellous."

Joan has never heard him sound more British. Not even in Britain. And given he generally speaks in a mixture of contemporary American and contemporary British, this Bertie Wooster stuff is an obvious act.

Crash leads them through the woods to a clearing. Orange and blue tents have been pitched. The camouflaged boy resumes blowing up a bright yellow lilo. Two further young men are tending a disposable foil barbecue.

"I see you have all the equipment," Sherlock says.

No one appears to notice his ironic tone.

"We have work to do," Crash says. Her face is tight.

"Coffee sounds wonderful," says Sherlock, and twinkles at her.

Weirdly his charm works and Crash, scowling, digs in her backpack and brings out a plastic tub of instant coffee.

Joan marvels as Sherlock moves around the little group, learning names and ingratiating himself with all and sundry. By the time he reaches Joan's side again, he has five new friends and a chocolate biscuit, which he cracks in two, giving one piece to Joan. As he hands it to her, his warm fingers touch hers and he looks into her eyes with a bright and hopeful expression.

Joan takes the cookie and raises it to her lips, still gazing at Sherlock. His charm, which absolutely should not work on her (woken from sleep with cymbals, blindfolded for menial chores as a test of non visual senses, taken to an abandoned island for pity's sake) nonetheless does, and she feels the smile come into her eyes.

-At which he flinches away and goes off to eat his trophy with Crash, who appears to be the leader of this band of treasure hunters.

Joan accepts coffee from Twig, the boy in camouflage, and looks around at the tents, and the low autumn sun, strained pale and weak through a lacework of branches. She sighs.

Another mysterious factor in her already odd weekend. An insane asylum, an island, and now this bunch.

One thing is especially odd, though. This troupe of modern treasure seekers have tents, and shovels, and boundless enthusiasm - but most treasure is precious gold or silver or bronze, and this lot have no metal detectors.

* * *

Crash stands on the slimy surface of a fallen log and declaims, "We are here to exercise our freedom and throw off the burdens of city life! Larks Island represents a great opportunity for us and we intend to use it to the full. Now we don't have much light left, so let's get to it before full dark. Everyone, you know your designated search spots. New guys - where you were in the kitchen garden is good enough."

She claps her hands to dismiss them and the group scatters. Twig picks up a large camera, and Crash hangs an even bigger one round her neck.

"Kindergarten teacher," murmurs Sherlock.

"You know her?" Joan has automatically moved to his side.

He shakes his head. "It's written all over her gestures, her hair, her jewellery. Her hair is full of gel and red dye, but its the kind that rinses out, used for kids parties. Her nose and eyebrow piercings are inflamed - she takes the studs out during the week. And her fingernails are stained with modelling clay. Plus, obviously, she just dismissed a gathering of grown adults by clapping."

Joan smiles. There is a moment, a fleeting flicker of time when he pauses in his tunnel-vision dissection of their situation and is present with her, and she grasps it. "Sherlock," she mutters. "Grab that shovel and come tell me exactly what is going on."

His eyebrows go up, but he obeys.


	8. Chapter 8

They wander away from the group and poke the ground between venerable blueberry bushes for a minute or two. Then Joan grabs Sherlock's arm and pulls him towards the house. Larks Palace is grey and gloomy in the fading light, and the wind is thrusting the rags of curtains out through the smashed window panes.

Joan and Sherlock duck behind the low terrace wall and enter the wreckage of the communal lounge. Sherlock fetches his bag from Reception. "Let us sprawl," he says. "We will be less conspicuous to the casual glance."

They find a dry bit of floor amongst the heaps of ashtrays, mugs and antimacassars, and stretch out. There is no sign that the others have noticed their absence. Joan says, "OK, so what are we really doing here?"  
As if he has only been waiting for this moment, Sherlock rolls onto his side, reaches into his bag and produces a folder. "Right then. This file is rather interesting. It contains details, supplied to me by the former owner of Larks Island, regarding an unusual historical claim about this particular spot in America."

Joan sees maps, handwritten letters, and copies of documents written in a gothic hand. She takes a map.

On it is marked Larks Place, with a small drawing of a stone house, and some suggestive crosses. "X marks the spot," she says. "So Place became Palace. A quick way to upscale your house..."

Sherlock quirks an eyebrow. "And make your hospital sound more like a ...resort." His cheek twitches.

Joan works her way through the rest of the file's contents. The breeze has picked up and the lounge, with its giant windows, is rather exposed; she weights each fresh sheet with an ashtray as she sets it out on the floor. "This is - Sherlock, this says that Captain Kidd visited the island and left treasure behind."

"Indeed."

Joan frowns over the letters between long dead islanders. "This implies that the original owner, someone called... Lion Ramsay - really? - did Kidd a favour, and Kidd left him gifts in return. Some open and frank, and one greater favour to be found if Kidd should not return within the year."

She is quoting from the quaintly-worded old documents. "And he did not return and so we set to and searched for this treasure for we sorely needed relief at that time."

"Poverty can strike even the most discerning of pirate-friendly landowners," Sherlock observes.

"But though we searched yea and hunted all about none was found... Right," says Joan. "So there was no treasure. Kidd was yanking their chain. So what?"

"So," says Sherlock, "this." He takes another file from the bag. The bag lurches weightily. Is it full of books? She has not escaped cases - but has she managed to at least leave the reading list behind? She does not want to think about syndromes, not here.

Sherlock sits up cross-legged next to Joan, spreading a modern map across their knees. "I have marked this with the places apparently excavated by the original Larks." He takes out his phone. "Ah. No signal." He holds his hand out for Joan's phone. She gives it to him and he grimaces at it. "Drat. We are without the convenience of the internet. Well. Anyway. Our scruffy friends back in the woods are The Radical Types, an underground group, no pun intended, who enjoy urban exploration, particularly of old train tunnels, abandoned theme parks and the like."

"I heard of that," Joan says. "They break into old factories and government bunkers."

"Yes. There is a whole segment of society which likes to spice up its workaday existence with a little trespass at the weekends. Mostly they come, they take pictures of creepy old buildings, they leave. This, however, is something else."

He shows a printout from a web page. "This, here, is their current project. Find the Larks Island treasure. I joined their forum," he adds casually.

Joan reads the discussion board thread. It is a plan - rather a detailed plan - to use yard-by-yard searches of the island to eliminate every spot where treasure cannot lie, and then excavate everywhere else.

"Everywhere?" She is impressed, in a horrified kind of way.

"Yes. The owner is not best pleased."

"I can imagine. " As much as the place a dump, it's his dump. "Who is the owner, anyway?"

Sherlock pauses before replying. "Mr Henry Chambers bought the island in 1970. An elderly gentleman. Our help is required in ridding this property of these quite literal gold diggers."

The task is no weirder than their usual jobs. "OK. So how are we supposed to stop them?"

"Well. The case has more interesting points than you might suppose. Yes, these treasure seekers are committing trespass. But it is their rather peculiar actions - even as known lovers of the derelict and spooky - which attracted me to this plea for help." He flashes her a smile, turns serious again before she can return it. Sherlock does not indulge in camaraderie. Or as Joan might also call it, were it anyone else, affection.

" -Look." He places another web page printout on top of the pile. "Here is the list of where they have searched so far."

Joan reads. The library, the store room, the communal room. "These are all in Larks Palace!"

"Exactly. Why, with all this diggable ground around them, would they choose to begin an inventory of the contents of a house which post-dates their pirate by some two hundred years?" He dips his head and gives her a significant look.

"That is weird. But they do like old stuff." She thinks of the Journal of Marine Archaeology.

"Certainly. But - Watson, have you ever visited the websites of urban exploration groups? It is one-hundred-percent atmospheric snaps of Keep Out signs and dripping sewers. Not lists of what they found. Most of them do not appear to even collect souvenirs of their visit."

"Hmmm." She takes the printout, scans it. In the twilight, without her glasses, it is tricky, and she twists towards what light is left.

The list is of books and papers discovered in the house. "They're looking for old documents," Joan concludes. "Something to lead them to the treasure."

"My idea also. Yet even the most naive of bounty hunters cannot possibly think that "- he takes up the sheet and reads "- laundry bale labels from 1960 - hold the vital key to the whereabouts of an eighteenth century privateer's cache?"

He passes out sheets. "These are the dullest photos I have ever seen on the internet. These beat Top Flemish Pylons."

Close-up shots of papers and books fill the web page. In each case the words are clearly visible.

"Radical affirmation of the right to roam it is not, Watson."

"Maybe they think the treasure is under the house. They're preserving what they find because they're hoping to come in here and demolish it. Which would not take a lot of work."

"Another dig at my choice of country retreat, Watson? I'm wounded. I have an idea about what it is they seek, but it would be rather satisfying to catch them looking, provide witness to the trespassing case which the island's owner will bring against them, and get them to lead us to the actual thing they believe is here."

"OK..."

He is tapping his fingers together and avoiding her eye. "There's something else," Joan states.

Sherlock is examining the ceiling, which is hanging down in jagged plaster clumps. "What they seek," he says, and stops.

There it is again, this doubt, this hesitancy. He is disturbed by something, or worried that she will be. That in itself is enough to cause concern. When has he ever tried to shield her from this job's nastier aspects?

"We'll look together," Joan says firmly.

"Mmn."

Whatever it is, he is not saying. Joan thinks back - the letter about his inheritance, the surprise trip here, the Radical Types, treasure, the insane asylum. Of all these, the only thing outside their normal range of bizarre activities is the inheritance. From Sherlock's aunt.

-His eccentric aunt.

Oh.

Not eccentric, perhaps. Perhaps, genuinely sick.

"Sherlock," Joan says slowly, resisting the urge to reach out and touch his arm. "Your aunt. Was she a ... mental health patient?"

His mouth drops open. "How did you know?"

"You," she says. "Your reaction to this place." No wonder he was so upset by the straps and electrodes. He had been fond of his aunt, whatever her oddities. And she was the right age to have been institutionalised...

"Aunt Edith stayed here," Sherlock says through a taut jaw. "In her youth. For a short time." He darts glances at her now, and fidgets his shoulders. "In case you should find - any reference to her."

"Oh." Here, in this ghastly place? Sequestered, essentially, a prisoner? Now Joan really wants to give Sherlock a squeeze. "Sherlock. I'm not - shocked. Lots of people stayed in care in those days."

"Oh no, she really was doollally," he says lightly, answering a remark she never made. "Completely bonkers."

Joan winces.

"Hence my interest in this particular case," he adds.

It makes sense. But still Joan has the impression he is not telling her everything.

Will he ever? What will it take for there to be true sharing between them?

Not sex, that's for sure. If she had imagined that their one wild night would lead to total openness, she has been proven quite incorrect.

She hides a sigh. Sherlock has just admitted something private, something which anyone would find difficult. She cannot demand more. And to be frank, it is getting dark and they ought to be leaving.

Sherlock begins to pack away the printouts. "So our task, Watson, is to stick like glue to these intrepid explorers and find out what they really seek and who is paying them to do it."

"How do you know they're being paid?" She is gathering pages. One flutters away in the wind and she snatches it up. A photo of a laundry ledger. The one she found upstairs, in fact.

"Their cameras. Ten thousand dollars a pop. Not on the salary of a kindergarten teacher and an ice cream waiter." He glances at her, expectant.

"Twig has sprinkles under his nails," she supplies.

He nods, just visibly. It is dim and cold in the lounge. His face is in shadow. He zips up the bag and gets to his feet. "So, let us prepare for the night -"

"Here!"

"And endeavour to learn what we can."

Sherlock lifts his bag. "Your luggage can stay where it is, I suggest. This weather is turning, and you probably won't feel like pyjamas."

She stands, arms folded, blocking his path. The sun has now set. "Sherlock. Are we camping here?"

"Oh no."

"Thank god."

"We are bivouacking." He grins warmly at her and then bounds away, calling, "If we were camping, we'd have tents."


	9. Chapter 9

A bivouac is any makeshift shelter. This bivouac is a waterproof sheet strung between the flaking bark of two silver birch trees. Sherlock drops another sheet vertically on one side.

"I thought you said the top was waterproof." Joan has witnessed the erection of this inadequate-looking campsite with some trepidation.

"Rain also travels sideways." Sherlock steps back and admires his creation.

"Right."

They have picked a spot at a distance from the Radical Types, whose evening appears to be shaping up around a backpack crammed with beer and a stack of two-minute noodles. For five people apparently dedicated to defying convention and leading boundless lives, this looks a lot like a high school field trip. Crash and Twig are locked in a breathless, silhouetted embrace in her tent.

Joan thinks about her bank account, which even on her present salary holds enough for a weekend in a solid building with hot running water, thick walls and room service.

"Catch, Watson!"

She snatches at a flying foam cylinder. It is a roll up sleeping mat. A dense, soft hurled from Sherlock's holdall at Joan's head reveals itself as a mummy-shaped sleeping bag.

"This is camping," Joan says. "I do not camp."

"Do you eat?" Sherlock asks pointedly.

"Yes."

"Then I suggest you start collecting." He hands her an aluminium mess tin.

"What exactly?"

"Berries. Avoid the poisonous ones."

"How!" She just dodges the book as it sails towards her face. "Right."

"Luckily I have come prepared with the means to cook supper," Sherlock says. Crouching, he unzips one of his holdalls and lays out a selection of silvery metal items. "Of course we have to catch it first," he adds, screwing together what turns out to be a small camping stove.

"Great," she says. "Survival trip."

"Exactly. You never know when these skills will come in handy." His hands on the stove are brisk and efficient.

"Never," Joan says. "We live in one of the world's most advanced cities."

He quirks an eyebrow. "Have you forgotten Sandy? A similar event could leave New York without power, water, or food supply for a protracted period. It is best to be ready."

Oh god. Is he a prepper?

"Don't look at me with such disdain, Watson. I intend my genes to be among those which continue beyond any such event, and that means a little advance consideration of the possibilities."

She supposes she should not be surprised. He lives off possibilities. He once said it was the reason he disliked flying. "So do we have three years' worth of bottled water in our basement?"

"Mock me and I might not share it with you," he says, and she cannot tell if he is joking.

She stalks grimly towards the kitchen garden, flashlight in hand.

* * *

Up at the house, stormy sunlight is streaming straight through the wreck of the Palace from the lawn to the back windows. It is rather beautiful and Joan softens a little towards Larks Island and the prospect of a night under canvas. The low light disguises the ugly damage to the house and she could squint and see it as the original builders intended - solid, dependable,elegant. A good place for your relations to undergo therapy.

Here in an orange glow unseen in city streets, decorated with a retinal pattern of branches around the edges, Joan could believe that patients might have been content here.

Even, she hopes, Sherlock's aunt.

This gives her a thought. Sherlock mentioned evidence of his aunt's sojourn here. The Radical Types, or their unknown employers, are searching for documents. Could they be looking for proof of a particular resident?

This must have occurred to Sherlock or he would not have mentioned it.

Joan remembers the laundry ledger she found. The communal linen was listed at the front and occupied most of the book. But at the back was the record of residents' personal items sent out for cleaning.

The book was found by the Types, photographed, and put back. Dismissed. They never looked through the later pages.

Joan looks at the house. She has a flashlight and she knows where the ledger is. It is not creepy.

It _is_ a little creepy. But she will be very quick.

She stashes the mess tin on the kitchen windowsill, clicks on the flashlight, and goes inside.

She has never got in and out of a building so fast. Suddenly, sleeping in the forest, far from this creaking, musty, oppressive old pile, seems like a vacation. She grabs the ledger from the laundry room and clatters down the stairs with a pounding heart and terrified legs.

Back in the garden, she feels foolish. Sherlock would not let atmosphere unnerve him whilst fetching a clue. Sherlock is immune to atmosphere.

-Joan corrects that thought. He is not immune. On the trail of that kidnapper he was more tense than she has ever known him. Today he has been edgy and unhappy. So she can just stop being unfair to him and take a look at this book.

She perches on a low brick wall and opens the ledger. It is damp but intact. The benefit of mundanity. This might be why so many archaeological finds are utterly banal: combs, small change. The silk sheets and gold bars were stolen long since.

She flips pages, speed reading, searching the laundry listings for a name. And soon she finds it. _Holmes. Violet. Foxfur stole._ But the name and date are wrong. This is 1922. She keeps going. _Holmes. Eric. Thirty handkerchiefs. 1943._

There are five Holmes, and their personal laundry items, from 1883 to 1962. The most recent is Sherlock's late aunt Edith.

Coincidence? Holmes is not an uncommon name on either side of the Atlantic. Or is this a sign of the consequence, in Sherlock's family, of what happens if you never find an outlet for your voracious mind?

Joan sits back, the book limp across her knees, the flashlight pointing at some prickly shrubs.

Sherlock's strange behaviour. His twitchy, laser focus. His disturbance at being in this former asylum. His empathy for the wicked kidnapper, released against his own wishes from the care that was supposed to keep everyone safe. All these things and Sherlock has a long history of mental illness in his family.

She supposes it is not surprising. Sherlock's energy, his relentlessness, his disregard for the opinion or feelings of anyone else, mark him out. His refusal of meals, of sleep, when a problem has him by the cranium, are infuriating and peculiar. His recourse to drugs to sharpen, and then deaden, his senses, speak of trouble controlling his mind.

He is not normal. But that is what makes him...special.

She winces, hearing Bell's voice, and her own fierce defence of Sherlock.

Five Holmes at the Palace, and here is number six, drawn in by a new puzzle, searching for an answer he might not want to see.

Joan sits holding the book for a long while, until her stomach rumbles. Then she remembers dinner, and her errand. The flashlight beam still rests on the spiky bush opposite, and she realises that the shrub is bearing a crop of sizeable blackberries.

* * *

When she returns with the mess tin full of mixed blackberries and tayberries, even a few blueberries from what had once been the kitchen garden, she smells dinner. Sherlock has the stove going and a large pot on it.

Joan peers in. Meat is paling in a bubbling and fragrant broth.

"Rabbit," says Sherlock.

"How?" He is good at whatever he chooses. But hunting? In half an hour?

"Frozen," he tells her. "Defrosted during the drive."

"You couldn't bring a generator and a microwave?" she says. He just holds out his hand for her tin.

The laundry ledger is in her back jeans pocket. She tucks it discreetly into her sleeping bag. She needs to think about things before deciding whether to have the family-history discussion with Sherlock.

Sherlock crushes the foraged berries roughly, divides them between two bowls. Half goes straight into the pot. He adds a handful of juniper berries from a baggie in his holdall. "Enriches the flavour," he remarks vaguely. Does he have a complete larder in that holdall? His provisions have been amazingly sensible and complete.

Joan organises cutlery and watches the Types getting sloshed twenty yards away. She sniffs the air. Above the childhood scent of camping gas, she can smell dope.

"Rabbit stew," announces Sherlock, tipping it into bowls. Joan marvels, as ever, at his quiet competence. They eat. It is good. Of course. Sherlock can do anything.

For dessert they have the rest of the berries, slathered in maple syrup from a bottle in Sherlock's pack. He shrugs when she comments. "Couldn't rely on tapping a maple," he says. "Maybe next time."

"Next time you're on your own." But now she is outside a little dinner, she is feeling more charitable towards the island. And she did say she wanted to get out of the city.

Now it is fully dark with only flashlights to see by. The Types are fooling around with theirs, and goading Crash and Twig into drunken displays of lust. Sherlock has strung one of his flashlights from a tree, pooling yellow light onto their two sleeping bags and illuminating the bivouac.

"Bed," says Sherlock.

"What, you?"

"I provided the means of transport," he replies with dignity. "I am fatigued. And we should be rested, in case one of our raggedy friends decides on an early resumption of their treasure hunt."

"Ok," she says. "Should we take watches, or what?"

"I suspect they will soon fall into alcoholic or narcotic stupors," Sherlock says."Anyway, I'm a light sleeper. If need be I will wake you."

"Thanks. I think."

* * *

Sleeping outdoors is cold. And the air moves constantly. Weirdest of all is air on your face, outside air, forest air, air so full of oxygen your lungs hardly know what to do with it.

No. Scratch that. Weirdest of all is being at ground level, your head half an inch from the soil, and being aware that almost everything has long enough legs to step up onto your sleeping mat. You can hear creatures all around making minute rustles and crackles as they progress across the forest floor. And sometimes, louder noises, heavier footfalls and snaps of larger twigs. It must be birds, or mice, but it sounds like badgers, or bears.

Yet despite all of this Joan is mostly content. The air is delicious. The polar sleeping bag is snug. The creatures probably won't walk over her face. And Sherlock is six inches away on his own mat, staring up at the underside of the bivouac as if it is glittering with stars.

"Magnificent," he says.

Joan laughs. "Being castaway or being unable to sleep?"

"Being outside."

"Yeah. It's ok. I could live without the feeling that insects are going to march across my eyelids as soon as I'm asleep."

His turn to chuckle. His hand shoots across the gap and finds her arm through the sleeping bag. "You don't taste of what they want to eat," he says.

She closes her eyes. "How do you know?" she asks, darkness and quiet already creeping over her.

"Because I'm not an insect," he says.

Typical weird answer. She drifts, and wonders.

Time passes, and the Radical Types are silent, and Joan wakes.

She is shivering in her sleeping bag. The night air has chilled down with startling speed.

"You're awake," comes Sherlock's soft voice.

"I can't feel my nose," says Joan. She flexes her toes. "Or my feet."

"It _is_ October," says Sherlock in a tone of great reason, as if she signed up for this and has only herself to blame.

"It can be October as much as it wants when I am in a proper bed in a heated room," she retorts.

He chuckles.

After a moment she sighs, and smiles too. "Aren't you cold?"

"I am toasty-warm."

"Hah. Bully for you." She tries to pull the sleeping bag up around her neck, but it slides out from under her. The rubber mat is cold and unpleasant.

Sherlock's hand lands on her shoulder, making her jump. "Crawl in, Watson." He holds open his sleeping bag.

This is so not the moment. But she is freezing.

"Come on," he says. "It's not as if we haven't done this before."

"Yeah, but not in an island camp full of stoned teenagers."

"Then all the more reason to keep a watchful eye on each other. The corrupting influence of peer pressure et cetera..." She can barely see him, but his grin is audible.

She gives him an eye roll which he won't see either, and shuffles her sleeping bag over to his. His arms draw her the rest of the way. As she accustoms herself to being inside his personal space, he puts his arm over her back and zips the two bags together. "Far more practical," he says.

He slides his arm over her, inside their cocoon this time, and splays his fingers over the dip between her shoulder blades. "Ah. Yes."

He sounds so smugly satisfied that she has to laugh.

"What?"

"You only had to ask," she says, and accepts that they are having this conversation now, under trees, with an audience who with any luck are too out of it to pay any attention, and with an ocean wind brisk across their faces.

She hears his indrawn breath. "Dangerous, Watson," he murmurs, and shifts so that his body is against hers in a press of warm chest and hard sinewy legs. Her face goes into his neck. "When I attach it is like a limpet."

"Shellfish are OK," she says.

He snorts. His hands smooth down her hair.

She shouldn't, not here. Because once you start something it has to continue and they are, again, totally unprepared for this. Even as she thinks this, she rests her lips on his throat, tasting his hot skin. "You're on a case," she says.

"So? I still have bodily functions. I still eat and sleep."

"No you don't."

"Well, some things are more dispensable than others." His fingertips trickle down her spine and his breath is in her hair.

He has not had female company since their time in London, as far as she knows. "Opportunistic bull," she says.

He chuckles.

Joan wriggles up so they are at eye level. "Sherlock...this - us. It doesn't have to be a big deal."

"No," he agrees. "It doesn't. And yet." He leans towards her, his eyes huge, his face intent. It was never like this in London, his affection, his eagerness for her touch spoken aloud. She is prepared to shiver, to experience a different kind of bliss now that emotion, as well as desire, is in play. She closes her eyes in sweet anticipation of his kiss.

And opens them again as his foot kicks the laundry ledger against her ankle and he says, "Watson. What's this?"


	10. Chapter 10

Sherlock flicks on the flashlight and stares at the laundry ledger. He sits up, shedding sleeping bag and forcing Joan up too as precious heat drains away into the night. Sherlock appears oblivious to that. He sticks the flashlight between his teeth and leads through the pages, grunting when he reaches the end of the routine communal bales and the start of the personal items, and the names. His gaze whips, fast but heavy like the lash, up to Joan's face. "Why did you have this in your sleeping bag, Watson?"

She flushes. "I was reading it."

"I deduced that much. Find anything interesting?"

She steels herself. Looks him in the eye. "A lot of Holmes."

He stares back at her, and she cannot read him. "Yes."

He drops his head, then, and his gaze follows after, like a shadow lurching to keep up as you hurry between street lamps. He scans the book.

Joan waits, lips pressed together, determined to ignore the cold. There is silence as Sherlock sits with the page open and his face pointing towards it, but his mind obviously far, far off. "Ah!"

Joan tries to see the entry which startled him but cannot. She waits, but he just closes the ledger, slides it down inside the bag, and settles back in his original position.

Joan hesitates. The moment, their spark of intimacy and love, is so far gone she could probably see it soaring over Long Island if she tried, but Sherlock is composing himself for sleep and has not unzipped their sleeping bags. She shuffles down beside him again, feeling his warmth and his distance like the dizzying head-rush sensation in a dream, just before you teeter over the precipice.

"A lot of Holmes," Sherlock remarks into the atmosphere.

"Five," Joan says. Is that a lot? In one family, she guesses it is. If there were five, say, cops in one family, you'd say that was a lot, you'd say it must run in the blood, you'd mention it every Thanksgiving dinner and chuckle.

Presumably family reminiscences about mental health don't work like that.

After a while Sherlock says, "Aren't you going to ask me?"

She dislikes asking. Prefers deduction. Prefers still when he volunteers the truth, when it so closely involves his own history."Maybe later."

She turns away, but as she does she sees him staring, a faint frown on his brow, and his lips just parted as if he was about to speak and then did not know what he was going to say.

Then he speaks.

* * *

Sherlock's voice is light and low in the darkness. "For many families, coming to America is a sign of new beginnings, of the potential for success. In my family it has long been a sign of failure."

He pauses. Giggles and rustles waft across from the Radical Types. There is a clanking of beer cans as someone rolls over in their tent.

Sherlock resumes. "This place. An asylum. A place to keep the people who embarrass you by their strange behaviour and their refusal to abide by the rules of society. Your lunatic relations."

Joan remains still.

"Not quite a hospital, not quite a prison. Anyone who could handle a canoe might escape. Anyone who could persuade the supervisors that they had been, somehow, cured, could ask to be sent home. But given that the families most embarrassed by lunacy, the families who could afford to send someone to an asylum, were the wealthiest, there was usually someone around who wanted to keep that money rolling in."

He rolls over, lies on his back looking up to where stars would be, if the sky were clear. "You saw the jetty here. An elegant construction with a small shelter and a place for the carriage to wait. Visitors were then taken up to the house."

"It's a five minute walk."

"Some visitors, Watson, were catatonic."

She has a clear picture in her mind, then, of a figure lying on the wooden planks of the landing, in a coarse white coat, his arms strapped around his torso, his face turned up to the sky, pleading.

"This place was discreet and difficult to reach. It took us two hours to drive here in a Lexus, Watson. Imagine trying to visit an imprisoned relative in a pony trap or on foot. And then you would require a boat."

"There must have been regular deliveries, staff visiting the mainland."

"Correct, Watson, and visitors would find themselves sharing a vessel with tinned and dried goods and supplies of fuel and medicine."

"So what ended it?"

He gives a short laugh. "What ends most criminally negligent ventures?"

"The authorities found out they were treating their patients cruelly and shut them down."

"Your faith in the regulations is touching, Watson, but no. In this case, as in many others, the end came for quite another reason. The owners found something more profitable to do."

She thinks organised crime, gangs, assassination.

Sherlock's mouth twists. "They opened a chain of care homes for the elderly."

She recalls the dates on the mouldy documents they found earlier. "1963. The end of institutionalisation."

"Yes. But this was not a state hospital. It was a private business. A hotel."

"So these people were guests."

"Well, they certainly paid. The entertainments programme left something to be desired."

He falls silent.

Joan has nothing to add, to query. He has offered up his privacy. She dare not touch it.

He switches off the flashlight and they lie still, and eventually, Joan sleeps.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Just to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous 2014. -Sef


End file.
